Decision to restrict thimerosal in immunizations could impact future vaccine availability on a global scale
A critical federal vaccine panel has recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability.
The panel was unilaterally remade by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who has urged against the use of thimerosal despite a lack of evidence of real-world harm.
Across three votes, members voted in favor of restricting thimerosal in seasonal influenza vaccines across all age groups – with five in favor of the restriction, one abstention and one vote against.
“The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent – as far as we know – risk from thimerosal,” said Dr Cody Meissner, a panel member and professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine who was the lone “no” vote.
“Kennedy fired all 17 former members of the panel in June, citing conflicts of interest, and appointed eight new members, all of whom are ideological allies of the secretary.”
Nothing shocking about this.
Cannot another preservative which does not contain mercury be used instead of thimerosal?
There are, but they aren’t as well documented, not that a history of safety means anything as time goes by and we learn or uncover more things(doctors used to recommend bloodletting after all). They can also go to single use vials and remove the need for preservatives at a slightly increased cost per dose.
Though the mercury is at such insignificant doses as you get with thimerosal, you get more mercury eating fish and the form of mercury in thimerosal is not well retained in the body, putting mercury in your body is scary and people are too stupid to understand the difference between methylmercury and ethylmercury or what 0.7mcg/kg per week means.
At this point I think America’s only hope is if the people with good ideas turn out to be better at scaring the public than the people with bad ideas are. So it goes with our Idiocracy.
